Tourism Development Cooperation in a Changing Economic Environment—Impacts and Challenges in Lao P.D.R

Abstract

Laos, which is in transition from planned to market economy, opened its’ borders for international visitors in the 1990ths. Today, tourism is a major business sector that can also significantly contribute to socio-economic development and poverty reduction in the country. Transformation into a global destination is accompanied by international donors, who want to foster qualitative pro-poor tourism development. The work of development organizations focuses on policy formulation, capacity building and sustainable community based projects. Based on an analysis of these initiatives, this paper will investigate the problems associated with tourism cooperation and pro-poor impact of the work. Findings indicate that development cooperation operates in a difficult environment of new economic dynamics and long standing political structures. Serious challenges encountered in the projects were the lack of qualified personnel, the low capacity in tourism planning and management and insufficient cooperation with tourism economy. Generally, foreign aid helped to lay a foundation for qualitative development and successfully created model projects for sustainable alternative tourism. But results regarding poverty reduction were mixed. The donors therefore refocused their interventions: they adopt a stronger pro-poor approach, implement a broad-based vocational training scheme and they now work on inclusive value chain management of mainstream regional tourism. Besides that, creating an enabling environment for small and medium tourism enterprises is another priority. They work in Laos under rather unfavorable conditions and might soon be overwhelmed in the globalization process by international competitors.